Page 1

One
KNOX
We’re too late.
I saw her leave, I watched her get to the car, and then when my phone rang and Dimitri’s name flashed for the tenthtime I picked it up. He was shouting, panting, and there wasn’t much to make sense of.
Other thanCoach is out.
That was enough for me to rush back outside, but her car was gone. No sign of her. And perhaps it was nothing, perhaps she truly went to the hospital. I wanted to believe that, almost had myself convinced of it.
Until I saw her phone, lying alone on the concrete next to her assigned parking spot.
I’d lost her. She’d slipped through my fingers,our fingers, and back into the clutches of that monster. The man we’d looked up to for so long, followed around like he was a god.
My hands shake, my blood runs cold, and I can’t tear my eyes away from the empty parking spot in front of me.
Where do I even start? Where would he go? Back home?
A car door slams behind me. I turn in time to see Dimitri sprinting toward me.
No words are needed—my face says it all. He shakes his head and curses under his breath. “We have to go after him,” he says. I nod.
“But where?”
“Start at his house. See if he took her there.” He sighs. “But he won’t be that stupid.”
“Call Carpenter,” I say, fumbling for my keys. “Tell him Hope had an emergency back home and I’m going to help.”
“Knox—”
“Find out who knew. Keep an eye on that prick Jared.”
He grabs my shoulders. “Jared had a video of her and Dad—he got it the day he tried to force her…” He exhales. “The file came through an encrypted email. I don’t know who sent it.”
“Yet,” I say. “You stay here. I’m useless with computers—if anyone can trace it, it’s you.”
“Okay,” he breathes. “What about Jaxon?”
“…You tell him,” I say carefully. Jaxon isn’t a bad guy, but if you touch his playthings, grab something of his… you better not be in punching range. And Jaxon and I have had plenty of brawls, where neither of us came out as the winner.
“Great,” Dimitri mutters.
“Good luck,” I add and head to my car. I can never catch up with them, I know that. But I have to start somewhere.
Going back to where it all began.
Home.
A shudder creeps down my spine as I press the gas. This is the last place I ever expected to return: the town I fought so hard to escape, the place that never helped me, only caged me. I wouldn’t do it for anyone other than Hope. I almost laugh, a bitter, terrible laugh. I’m literally chasingHope. Trying to tighten my grasp on her just so that way I have something good, warm, right in my life even if I don’t deserve her. Even if I’m just another monster for her.
Maybe catching her and getting time to do things right will prove I changed, or can change… for her.
I try to hold onto that thought as I fly through town, treating every yellow light as an order to hurry, but when I get to the highway with an open stretch of road in front of me, all I can do is think about what I left behind and every memory is fighting to climb out of the dark hole I put them in to fill my head. There’s no way to block them all.
The sizzle on my skin ruins the familiar smell of cigarettes. I stare at the man who’s supposed to take care of me. It has to be an accident. Of course it’s an accident. I try to move my hand, but he grabs it tighter and jerks me over his legs. He brings the cigarette down on my shoulder. I whimper beneath his punishment; pain soars through me.
“Disobedience burns. It’s the first step to hell,” he growls before lifting the cigarette so the smell of my singed skinstings my nose. He brings it down again and again, smoking occasionally as if my skin makes it taste better, gives him a better nicotine high. I finally slap it out of his hand, but he just flicks his knife across my skin as it opens. “Take your punishment. Wear it on you, bastard!”